Re: quicksort and compiler optimization

[Adrian Hey]

On Sat 09 May, Mariano Suarez Alvarez wrote:
> The problem is that something like (head (qsort [whatever])) is not strict
> in the whole resulting sorted list, so merging the comprehensions is not a
> win but a loss (a big loss: now we've got bottom!). 

Have we? I don't see this, unless the list to be sorted is infinite,
(in which case will any sort function will terminate, even with lazy
evaluation?). Perhaps I haven't understood you properly. Perhaps I
don't understand what 'a bottom' is. (I always thought this meant
failure to reduce to head normal form, but maybe it means somthing
else.) Would you care to elaborate?

Regards
-- 
Adrian Hey